


Any Other Way

by MagalaBee



Series: Ingrid Rarepair Week [7]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Glenn lives AU, glennigrid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagalaBee/pseuds/MagalaBee
Summary: Ingrid refused to cry. Not when he could still wake up and show her those beautiful blue eyes once more.INGRID RAREPAIR WEEK DAY 7: AU
Relationships: Glenn Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Glenn Fraldarius/Ingrid Brandl Galatea, glennigrid
Series: Ingrid Rarepair Week [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1973008
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Any Other Way

**Author's Note:**

> The final day of Ingrid Rarepair Week!! Everyone on my twitter voted for a Glenn Lives AU, so here is just a brief collection of possible moments for the two of them. I hope everyone enjoys this last piece for the rarepair week!

Ingrid refused to cry. Not when there was still hope. She had been sitting vigil at Glenn’s bedside for almost a week, and if she let herself cry now, it would be like giving up. 

Felix was on the other side of the room, sitting in the spare chair by the window and trying to practice his wood whittling. He wasn’t very good, but Ingrid knew he was just trying to keep his hands busy. He was refusing to cry too, they had come to a silent agreement about this. Glenn was in a precarious position after the Duscur attack. He’d suffered horrible burn scars and had been brought home comatose, but still breathing. He’d gone through surgeries and stitches to keep him put together… but he was still here.

And Ingrid wouldn’t cry as long as he was still here.

Taking a shaking breath in, Ingrid gently placed her hand in his. Glenn didn’t respond, but she laced their fingers together and gave his a small squeeze nonetheless. 

He was too young to die. He was only sixteen, he wasn’t allowed to go yet. There was so much left he wanted to do…

She knew because he told her about it. He told her everything he wanted to do with his life and encouraged her to do the same.

“We’re going to achieve our dreams together,” she muttered under her breath, so quietly that Felix didn’t notice. Or at least he pretended not to. “So wake up soon, Glenn… please.”

In the week she had been sitting by his bedside, Ingrid felt like she has aged at least five years. She had come to the Fraldarius manor hoping that Glenn would already be awake and she could hug him and cry in relief. She had imagined it all so vividly, played out like a fairy tale in her mind.

But then she’d gotten here and she’d found Felix sitting fidgeting and scared in the corner. His mother gently petting Glenn’s throat to feed him broth while he was unconscious. Rodrigue wasn’t even there, he seemed to be avoiding his injured son.

She had taken to helping Lady Fraldarius with moving Glenn’s arms and legs in his sleep so that his muscles wouldn’t grow too weak or thin. She nudged Felix to make him talk to her, even as they both stubbornly refused to cry.

Ingrid didn’t feel thirteen anymore. She felt so much older. Staring at the veil between the living and the dead was harrowing.

But he wasn’t gone, not yet, and she kept holding his hand, brushing back his hair, reading him her favorite stories--

“Mmm…” Glenn’s voice was hoarse and croaking, but even the smallest grunt was enough to rouse the whole room.

There was a clatter when Felix dropped his wood whittling to the ground. He rushed to the doorway and called-- “MOM!”

Ingrid squeezed Glenn’s hand tighter,feeling her eyes start to sting. “Glenn?”

“Hnngh…” he grunted again. His thumb twitched. And his eyes tried to open.

A tear fell down Ingrid’s cheek and she grinned. “Welcome home.”

* * *

It was so strange, how Ingrid had been prepared for this since the day she was born, and yet still she didn’t feel prepared to marry Glenn. Her stomach was full of butterflies as she looked at herself in the mirror.

Her gown was simple but elegant. Her parents couldn’t afford the heights of bridal fashion, but an old dress of her mother’s had been altered and given new trim. It was a pale blue color, with bits of gold accenting cording and patterned trim. Her veil was a similar shade of blue gossamer, hanging down her back from where her hair had been arranged and pinned up. It made her look older. Girls wore their braids down, but only a woman wore a chignon.

Ingrid smoothed her hands over the front of her skirts, trying not to let them shake.

“Stop being so silly,” she chastised her reflection. “This is what you’re supposed to do. This is what you want! You have no reason to be so nervous.”

There was a knock on the door that startled her. The ceremony wasn’t supposed to start for another thirty minutes, and Ingrid had convinced her mother to give her time alone. But still, she went to the door and yelped in surprise when Glenn was there.

“What are you doing?! It’s bad luck to see the bride--”

Glenn clicked his tongue and smiled at her. “Oh come on, you don’t really believe in all that. He leaned across the doorway, peeking inside at her. “...You look beautiful, by the way.”

Ingrid’s cheeks flared up in a bright pink Her heart had started hammering in her chest and she had to clench the edge of her bedroom door to keep her hands from shaking like leaves. “You… You look dreadfully handsome.”

He really did. He was clad in a beautiful dark green waistcoat with a gold brocaded vest. It looked expensive, she knew his parents had spent a pretty penny on their half of this wedding, to make up for how poor the Galatea half of it was. His face was marred by burn scars from three years earlier. Ingrid wondered if his lingering injuries had made their parents rush the wedding… They still felt too young to be doing this. But dressed in his finery, Glenn was still the more handsome groom she could have ever imagined.

“Thanks,” Glenn smirked. “I aim to please.”

Ingrid smiled back at him, though she felt like such a mouse. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to check on you,” he admitted. “I know… everything’s happened really fast.”

Ingrid glanced nervously at her feet. He’d been thinking the same thing she had. Between his scars and her monthly cycles, their parents had been planning this ceremony to happen at a breakneck pace. It made Ingrid glad she had been such a late bloomer, otherwise they might have been going through this two years earlier.

“This is what we’ve been talking about all my life,” she said quietly. “It’s… It’s what we want, isn’t it?” Sometimes she worried that it wasn’t.

“Hey…” Glenn reached out and his hand-- callused and rough from all of his training-- and laced his fingers between hers, squeezing tight. It summoned her gaze back up to his face, locking in with his pale blue eyes. “It’s ok to be nervous, Ingrid. I’m nervous too. But… There’s no one I’d rather be doing this with than you. Ok?”

She nodded and gulped. “Right…”

“And just because our parents rushed us into this doesn’t mean I’m going to rush you after.”

Ingrid stiffened. This was something that they had never talked about. The looming knowledge of wedding nights and expected heirs. Glenn noticed how tense she got and he frowned.

“I was gonna save this for after all the noise was over, but… I wanted to tell you now,” he said. “In the spring, after your birthday, we’re going to Garreg Mach’s Officer Academy.”

“R-Right, because Dimitri’s attending,” she nodded. “I know you’re his personal guard, my father already told me about it.”

“No, Ingrid,  _ we’re _ going. You’re coming with me. I already talked to the school, you’re going to have a place as a student.”

“What?!” Ingrid slapped a hand over her mouth to try and hold in her loud shout. “Y… You got my father’s permission?!”

Glenn scoffed. “I don’t need it. I’m going to be your husband, as far as anyone cares, I get to make decisions for you.” It was something that they both resented, but also something that Glenn had always promised to exploit in her favor. He was already making good on that. “Since we’re married, you’ll have to share a room with me still, but… I figure we can deal with that.”

“Glenn--!” Ingrid threw her arms around his neck and hugged Glenn as tightly as she could. The nervousness that had been brewing in her stomach disappeared, replaced instead by giddy excitement. In only a few short months, she would be training to become a knight. “Thank you! This… that’s… I don’t even know what to say!”

He chuckled, his arms comfortably circling around her back. “You don’t have to thank me. You’re the best lance user Faerghus has-- even if Sylvain insists otherwise. You earned this.”

“My parents are going to faint when they find out,” she giggled. “My mother’s already started praying for a grandchild.”

“Eh, dash all that,” he pulled back enough to kiss her forehead. It was a soft gesture that Glenn had always saved for her, as long as she could remember. “We don’t need to do any of that. Not until you actually want to. You should enjoy school first. I was just a kid when I went, but I still enjoyed it. You should get to do the same, with Felix and Dimitri and everyone.”

Ingrid’s heart felt light. Her hands weren’t shaking anymore. If anything, she was actually feeling excited for the ceremony to come. “I’m so excited… You’re amazing, Glenn. The best husband ever!”

“Heh,” he laughed again. “Save that until we’re actually married.”

* * *

The candlelight flickered, the shadows it cast about their bedroom swaying. Ingrid was lost in thought, sitting on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, staring at a blank space against the wall. Her fingers dug into the duvet, a bit of her nervous fidgeting that she had never really escaped since her childhood. 

“You feeling ok?” Glenn asked. He was on the other side of the mattress, settling in for the night. It was a late night, another to add to the constant slog of war. Luckily, Fraldarius’s borders were still holding, but they had returned from a search mission. Dimitri was still missing. Maybe dead. Ingrid wasn’t really sure which she believed, but the heavy weight of mortality was palpable. 

This was the first time in three months they’d actually been at the Fraldarius manor to sleep in their room.

“I…” Ingrid hesitated. She blinked and brought herself back into focus. She turned, shifting to sit on the bed and face him. She bit her lip, not entirely sure if there was a way to say what she wanted to say without sounding like a child. 

“I want to have sex.”

Glenn was silent. 

Ingrid felt her cheeks flushing and she blurted, “We’ve been married for four years, Glenn, and I know you didn’t want to push me because of school and then the war, but… I’m so tired of sleeping next to you every night but never… we haven’t even--”

He cleared his throat and cut her off. “Slow down, Brandy, it’s fine, I just…” Glenn rarely used her nickname from when they were kids. He used to call her that ages ago, it was the first thing she remembered about him. A special name, he called it, for fiancees only.

Glenn reached out and places his hand over hers. He smiled, looking a bit sheepish himself. He was three years older than her, but he hadn’t done any of this before either. In bed, they were equally unaware.

“Are you sure you want to do that right now?”

Ingrid huffed, “Yes! I’m sure! I’ve… I’ve honestly been thinking about it for a while. You don’t make it fair when you get all sweaty in the training yard--” Her cheeks were burning, but Ingrid was trying to hold her ground. “And the fact that you keep asking if I’m sure makes me feel like you don’t… Like you don’t  _ want _ to. With me.”

His hand squeezed around hers. “Ingrid. I want to. I want you,” he said firmly, not leaving any room for argument. His other hand reached to trace fingertips up her jaw until they sifting into the short, ruffled ends of her hair. She had cut it when Dimitri was ‘executed.’

“You’re gorgeous,” he murmured. “And you’re my wife. Of course I want you. I just never wanted you to feel like…” he hesitated, Ingrid watched his eye shift as he tried to find the word. “Like you’re just that to me. Our parents spent so long treating you like a thing to be bought, I just… I never want you to feel that way with me.”

“Glenn…” her voice was soft as she shifted closer to him. Ingrid hiked up the skirt of her nightgown as she lifted one knee and swung it over him, settling comfortable and confidently in his lap. “You don’t ever make me feel that way,” she reassured him. “You make me feel like I can be anything I want to be.”

“Goddess help whoever tries to stop you,” he said with a smirk, leaning forward to greet the intimate contact. 

Ingrid smiled back, even though she was still blushing. With him, she could be a mouse and a warrior all at once. “Kiss me, Glenn… Tonight, I just want to feel like a woman.”

Without saying another word, his lips found hers, in much the same way that they had so many times before. But now, Glenn wasn’t holding anything back from her. There was a fire in his lips that made Ingrid’s back arch, her body instinctively pressing against his.

In the flickering of candlelight, they made love. They exchanged gentle words and needy touches, and throughout it all, Glenn’s hand never left hers.

* * *

“You can’t just QUIT--” Felix shouted, his face set in a deep, frustrated scowl. Sylvain, to his credit, seemed to be at least holding in his own confusion and instead put a hand on Felix’s shoulder, trying in vain to calm him down. “Ingrid, you’re the Captain of the King’s Guard, are you trying to just destabilize the entire castle?! Does Glenn know you’re doing this? That’s a damned big change to make without him!”

Ingrid pinched the bridge of her nose. “Felix, will you please just breathe for a minute?” she asked. “I asked you both here so we could talk about this.”

Felix was still fuming. He’d never liked change, and she knew that he was worried about losing one of his friends. Since after the war, Dimitri had become more and more their king and less their friend. He didn’t have as much time to spend with them as equals, the country was always pulling for his attention.

It could be hard on all of them sometimes, and the idea of Ingrid leaving Fhirdiad to go live in Fraldarius all year round was a bit of an upsetting notion. The three of them had a system they had perfected here, as knights and friends at the same time. 

“C’mon, Felix, it was going to happen eventually,” Sylvain reminded him. “Our Ingy’s still a Duchess, and we can’t hog her away from Glenn forever. Poor guy retired knighthood three years ago and we still get all his wife’s attention for seven months of the year.”

Ingrid gave a dry chuckle. “Thanks for being so diplomatic, Syl. That work with Sreng’s really influencing you, isn’t it?”

He laughed. “Must be.”

Felix huffed, but as he released a sigh, Ingrid could see him start to settle a bit in his disappointment. “I just don’t get it. You’re at the height of your career… You love being a knight, why are you giving it up now of all times? Is your idiot father trying to manipulate you into something again?”

Ingrid nodded and tried to contain her smile. “Well, that’s the thing I wanted to tell you. I’m leaving the position for now, but… not forever. I’ve already worked it out with Ashe, and he’s going to be filling in to help you both while I’m gone. You boys can decide who will be Captain between yourselves, but I’ll be back.”

Sylvain’s eyes narrowed and he broke into a smirk. Felix’s brows pursed together.

“What, you’re going to be a part-time knight now?” he asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well in about five months you’re going to be an uncle, so maybe it will make more sense then,” Ingrid said.

Felix’s eyes went wide before he lurched towards her. In one swift motion, Felix had hugged her close and lifted her feet off the ground, twirling Ingrid in a circle over the floor. She broke into giggles and hugged him back. Felix had always been her best friend, even when they argued. Glenn had agreed to let her tell him the news, because they both knew Felix might have tried to punch Glenn if he’d be there.

“This is what you want?” Felix whispered in her ear as he held her in his arms. Protective and loving. He really was just as much her brother as he was Glenn’s at this point, and Ingrid knew that if this was all something she wasn’t ready for, he’d have fought Glenn tooth and nail to fix it.

“Yeah,” she whispered back. “I really do. I’m happy… I’m  _ so _ happy, Felix.”

He exhaled and squeezed her around her shoulders again. “This is amazing, Ingrid. Saints, I hope its a girl.”

That made both Ingrid and Sylvain start laughing. “Why?” she asked.

“We’ve had enough Fraldarius sons, I think we could all do with a little girl.”

Sylvain wrapped his arms around her as well, securing Ingrid in a sandwich between her dearest friends. “Oh, Inga,” Sylvain sighed happily. “You know we’re going to spoil this little potato, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Glenn and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


End file.
